Something settled in the pit of Ian’s stomach. A sense of calm, ease, and relief. They were making a difference. Finally, on their third try, they were making a difference.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Morgan had spent so many hours at the bombing scene that her head hurt. She’d had a late night with Adena, which had gone perfectly, and then had been thrown straight into dissecting another bomb. Fiona had been there, but Morgan had ignored her. However, there was no more avoiding she could do when her phone rang shrilly.

  Gritting her teeth, Morgan stared down at the name flashing across the screen. She hadn’t answered any of Fiona’s calls or texts since the fateful night the week before. But with the not-so-subtle hint that Pax had dropped, Morgan knew she was about to run face first into a demon of her own making.

  With the phone to her ear, Morgan answered, “Wexford.”

  “Morgan.” Fiona sounded out of breath.

  “That would be me.” She could have face-palmed herself for being so obtuse and stupid in how she responded to Fiona, but she needed that distance. Morgan had almost crossed the boundary that she promised herself to never willingly step over.

  “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  “I’ve been busy.” Morgan stepped on the gas as she drove through the lower west side. “I hear you’re heading up the task force from your end.”

  “Yeah. Morgan, do you think we can talk about the other night?”

  “No. We have a meeting in an hour. I’ll see you then.” Hanging up, Morgan slipped her phone into the cupholder and finished driving toward the bureau. She needed to gather everything for her task force meeting, which she was just so thrilled to have to attend. On one hand, she wanted to be in charge. It was a wonderful and perfect opportunity to have her name on something. She was only hesitant because Fiona was on the other end of it.

  When she got to the office, it was a whirlwind. She collected all the files she had and that she knew she would need and shoved them into her briefcase. Checking in with Taylor, she got the okay, and then stared at Pax’s empty desk. He was with Dimitri, and it broke her heart that she couldn’t be there with him while he went through another round of interviews. She so desperately wanted that case to be one-hundred percent hers, especially since she’d already been working on it for years.

  Sighing, she filled her travel mug with coffee and headed to Adena, grabbing what she had heard over the weekend about groups claiming or not claiming the attack. They were going to try and keep it as quiet as possible to not make anyone panic, but by that point, Morgan wasn’t sure she would be able to keep it quiet. They would have to be very controlled with what information they had. When she pulled up outside of Fiona’s precinct, she gave her another call while she gathered her bag.

  “Morgan?”

  “What floor am I going to?”

  “The third one. Take a left down the hall, go to the third conference room on the right.”

  “Got it. Be there in a few.” Hanging up, Morgan got into the building and followed Fiona’s directions. She expected everyone to be there, but there was no one but Fiona. Cocking her head in Fiona’s direction, Morgan’s lips thinned. “This is the right room, right?”

  “Yeah. You’re fifteen minutes early.”

  Glancing down at her watch on her right hand, Morgan nodded. “You’re right.”

  “Can we talk?”

  “We can talk about the case.” Morgan dropped her bag on the large table and pulled out files and reports, things she had made copies of for everyone who would be there.

  “No, not about the case.” Fiona moved over to the door and shut it.

  When Morgan glanced up, Fiona leaned over the edge of the table, her palms flat on the surface. Her shirt opened slightly at the top, and Morgan wondered just what kind of bra she wore underneath it before she chided herself and focused on the papers in her hand.

  “I will talk to you about the case.” Morgan sent her a sharp look. “Nothing else. We can talk about the rest some other day, but now is really not the place or the time.”

  “Morgan…” Fiona came around the table, standing right next to Morgan. Reaching out, Fiona’s fingers brushed Morgan’s forearm, sending tingles straight up to her shoulder and chest. “I want to talk about it.”

  “I don’t.”

  “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “No, we didn’t.” Morgan turned, staring straight into Fiona’s eyes. “And it won’t be something we do again, at least not any time soon. Let’s drop it. We have a case to work, and you and I need to do an interview after we’re done here.”

  “Interview?”

  Nodding, Morgan set the papers out on the table. “Help me with this, would you?”

  Fiona distributed papers around the large conference table and propped open the door but not before getting Morgan’s attention again. “You promise, Morgan?”

  “Promise what?”

  “That we’ll talk.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Fiona’s lips thinned into a line, but Morgan ignored it. She knew she was being a bit of a bitch, but she had to protect her own heart at some point. The mixed signals were a bit much, the ones Fiona had and the ones Morgan herself was giving. Fiona was right, they would need to talk at some point.

  Once everyone was settled, Morgan sat at the head of the table, Fiona right next to her. “Everyone, we have a case on our hands which we’re pretty sure is only going to escalate the longer it goes on. Now, we’ve had two separate incidents of bombings in the Muslim community. We are unsure how these two incidents are connected because one targeted a specific race while the other targeted a specific religion.”

  Morgan looked around the room. Some of them seemed surprised but the others didn’t. She sent a glance to Fiona, knowing she would pick up the conversation soon.

  “Now, we do know these two incidents are connected because of the bombs that were used. If you look at the report from our investigations, the first bomb at the factory matches the materials used in the Eid al-Fitr attack. There were some minor differences, which indicate these bombs were not made at the same time. So that tells us whoever is behind these attacks is most likely not finished.”

  She was just about to go on another rant when Fiona interrupted. “We have had no one arrested yet in these attacks yet, and no one suspected in these attacks yet.”

  Morgan nodded at her. “No group has come forward to claim them, either. We have our people watching the terrorism groups and the online chatter. Thus far, which is mostly odd, no one is claiming them.”

  “So what does that mean?” One of Fiona’s officers asked from the back of the room.

  “What it means is this is likely an individual rather than a group, and it is much harder to find an individual.”

  “Agent Stone is going to give us the profile in a minute, but I wanted to say one thing before she does that. This case is very sensitive. There is already a sense of panic amongst the Muslim community, and we don’t want to increase that panic, but we do want them to be cautious.”

  “Wexford is correct. We want to be very careful about what information gets out. Everything we talk about in this room is highly classified. It does not leave this room unless we discuss it and decide it is reasonable information to allow leaked to the media.”

  Fiona gave Morgan a look she couldn’t quite read. There was something heated behind the gaze, but Morgan couldn’t be sure what it meant exactly. They had never worked this closely together before. Fiona had only asked Morgan for a second opinion on some of her cases, and the only other time they may have potentially worked together, Morgan had taken over the case. Fiona finally broke the eye contact.

  “No one talks to the media except Agent Stone and myself, understood?” Everyone nodded at Wexford’s request. “Good, we are going to send out surveillance in the area of the second bombing to see if anyone saw something. We’re also going to send out people to the homes of factory workers to properly interview them again, those who were coming in for a shift and leaving a shift that day are the priority.”

  Morgan let Wexford take the reins for a bit. She knew it would be tossed back to her when they came to who they were looking for. That was her area of expertise, and Wexford wouldn’t want to touch that part of the conversation with a six-foot pole if she could avoid it.

  “Since the FBI has a…how do I say this delicately…spotty history with the Muslim immigrant community in this area, we are going to pair one and one—one agent to one detective.”

  Morgan turned up at Wexford then, tightening her lips as she stared at Fiona’s dark eyes while she took command. They had not discussed that part of the plan previously, and Morgan felt completely thrown under the bus. Although, it would make it easier to hide the fact that she wanted only Wexford to come with her to interview Ray again. They’d have to talk through strategy on that one before they went to find him.

  “My agents will meet you there,” Morgan added, knowing she was going to have to make a quick phone call. Wexford wasn’t wrong. The FBI and Muslim community did have a spotty and distrustful past, though it hadn’t been on her. It was part of the history and it would make it much harder for any member of the FBI to do an interview. She’d already run into that with Diric and the others at the factory.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket. When she glanced at it, it was her mom, but she decided to take the opportunity while Fiona was talking to make the other call. She held the phone up so Fiona could see and then walked out of the room.

  “Ma, now is not the time. You seriously have the worst timing.”

  “That’s not a very nice way to greet your mother.”

  “I’m busy in the middle of a conference meeting.”

  “Why did you answer then?”

  Morgan drew in a deep breath. Why had she answered? “I’ll call you tonight. Promises.”

  “Don’t break your promise, baby, please.”

  “I won’t.” Something in her mother’s tone set her on edge, but she really didn’t have the time to delve any deeper into it. Ending the call with her mom, she immediately called Taylor. “Hey, boss.”

  “Stone. How’s it going?”

  She drew in a breath. “Good. We’re almost done with the briefing. We’ll be setting up grids for interviews soon, but we’re wanting to pair one agent and one detective to see if it’ll be easier to take statements that way.”

  He didn’t say anything immediately. Morgan worried her fingers together, hoping the way she had phrased it would make him agree because if he knew it was Wexford’s idea he probably wouldn’t. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll inform our agents here.”

  “Have half of them meet us at the pier in an hour, and the other half at the factory in two hours. We’ll split them up from there.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  Hanging up, Morgan slipped back into the conference room to Fiona still talking about what was going to happen. Once she made it to her place at the table, Fiona turned the conversation over to her.

  “Right, so we’re looking for an individual. He is likely working alone, although he could have roped one or two friends into this plan with him.”

  “Wait, so is this one person or more people?” the voice at the back of the room caused Morgan to pause.

  “That is what we need to find out. We suspect it is more than one person, but there is a ring leader.” She passed around a paper she had withheld until that time. “Now, we’re looking for a white cis-male, most likely in his late-thirties to early-forties. This person will likely not have an elaborate life. He might not even be employed. He is smart enough to create and build a bomb, but these are not very sophisticated, so he likely found the information through some Internet searches.”

  The same voice interrupted her again. “Can’t you just like…Google who has searched for bomb-making materials?”

  Snickers resounded. Morgan flushed. This was why she hated working with task forces that were not from the bureau. But for some reason, Taylor refused to stick Pax on the case, although he would have been a much better option than her.

  “Our intelligence unit is looking into recent purchase of the materials used in both bombs and where those materials might have been purchased, but if it was done in smaller quantities it is hard to find those purchases, especially if it was not done all at once or with cash.” She felt like she was talking to toddlers.

  A snort. “What you’re saying is you all have no idea who is behind this and you want us to do your grunt work?”

  Morgan clenched her jaw. Something had changed from when she’d left the room to then, and she wasn’t sure where she had misstepped. “I’m saying it takes time, and since this second attack, we know a whole lot more information than we do from the first one.”

  “So we know nothing?”

  Morgan was about to retort, but Fiona put a hand on her arm to hold her back. Morgan stopped and stared up at the pitying look in Fiona’s eyes. She had to stop so she didn’t embarrass herself by losing her temper. She was already on a short fuse, and she needed to reel it back in.

  Fiona spoke next. “We have all been thrown a lot of information in the last few hours. It takes time to sift through everything. You all know that. What Special Agent Stone is here to do today is to brief us on the profile of someone we are looking for. We are working together on this case, not against each other.”

  “They’ll take all the credit when we find the guy and arrest him.” The disdain in the detective’s voice was there.

  Morgan was sure he had experienced something similar before, and she definitely wouldn’t put it past the FBI to do that. She’d witnessed it, many times. Once again, she was wishing she and Pax could switch spots.

  Fiona answered, “We will share credit since we have both put in the time and effort. I will make sure of that.”

  “As will I,” Morgan responded. “But really until we arrest someone who is guilty, then we don’t have much to worry about in terms of credit, do we now?” When she got silence as an answer, she continued, “Now, to finish the profile.”

  “Yes, lets.” Fiona sighed as she leaned into her chair.

  “This individual is most likely trying to fulfill a deep personal need, some serious self-confidence issues if you will. He likely wants to be seen as something other than who he is readily seen as. He wants to be seen as someone who does something, who is accomplished, who has a purpose. Which tells us that he is likely not seen as that in his every day. This is important, because when it comes to arresting him, if he puts up any kind of fight, that will be necessary to talking him down.”

  “He’s over-compensating.” Once again, snickers echoed.

  Morgan’s frustration rose. She was tired of being in that room with people who just wanted to talk jokes about her profile. She had better things to do with her time, but she pushed through and ignored them. “This is about power for him, about influence over others—perhaps the ones he’s convinced to work with him, perhaps over those who he is targeting, or even both. This is about his morality.”

  “What?”

  When Morgan looked to the one who had been cracking the jokes about the FBI, he looked utterly confused. “What are you not understanding?”

  “How is this about his morality?”

  Morgan dropped the pen she’d been gripping tightly onto the table. “He thinks the rest of us are immoral or unethical. He is taking it upon himself to try and correct that simply because he is not seeing anyone else do it.”

  “So he thinks we all need to be racist idiots?”

  Morgan cocked her head to the side. “He probably would not phrase it like that. He would probably tell us that we don’t understand what is happening in our fair city, that we have been brain-washed by the media into thinking nothing is wrong with immigration or with Muslims. He would probably tell us the woes of diversity, that diversity washes away what we know to be true about ourselves and how we stand apart from each other and stay strong. He would probably tell us that we are the only good ones.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him, knowing that in his likely cis-male and white WASPy world he would never understand what it meant to be a minority and in a lot of ways would fall right in line with the terrorist they were trying to catch and arrest.

  “Make sense to you?”

  He shrugged.

  “Right,” Morgan continued, “since this guy likely doesn’t have a job, we have no idea where he lives. What we need to do is interview witnesses to see if they saw anyone who they suspected didn’t quite fit in with what was going on, especially down by the pier. Our profile tells us he might know how to blend in, but it is rare that someone with his level of intelligence would be able to fit in for long if came push to shove.”

  “His intelligence?”

  “Yes.” Morgan drew in a deep breath. “Like I said before, this individual is likely to not be highly educated. He’s smart enough to make a bomb but not smart enough to make a really good bomb.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She smirked. “There were three bombs at the pier. Only two went off. He is not smart enough to replicate what he does three times in a row without making a mistake.”

  At the silence in the room, Morgan felt satisfied. She had successfully put the jerk detective in his place without calling him out directly. They finished up the briefing, and Fiona separated them out into groups, giving them instructions of where to go and when to be there. As soon as the room was empty, Morgan let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

  “You handled that well.”

  Morgan lifted one shoulder and dropped it as she gathered the papers left over and the rest of what she had brought with her. “Not my first rodeo.”

  “This is mine.”

  Morgan turned to her with surprise. “You first task force?”

  “No, not that. My first time being in charge of one, yes. This is a make it or break it case for my career, Morgan. I need this to go well.”